


Some Assistance Required

by Jadesfire2808 (Jadesfire)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:05:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadesfire/pseuds/Jadesfire2808
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's a team for, if not to lend a helping hand?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Assistance Required

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the picture prompt(I kid you not):  
> [](http://s172.photobucket.com/albums/w6/jadesfire2808/?action=view&current=paper-clip.jpg)

The smoke was filling the room now, making Rodney's eyes water and his throat burn. His tablet felt like it was made of iron and filled with rocks, although that might have had more to do with the shaking in his arms than the tablet itself. He resisted the urge to hit it or his head against the wall, since he already had enough blood over everything, thank you very much.

His fingers were trembling as he tried to find the right combination to override the door locks, and he was leaving smears all over the tablet's surface. The reddish tinge wasn't doing much for his nausea either, and he tried not to retch as he coughed again. He had to get the door open, he had to get out of here and he had to _not die_. That last one was really, really important.

He resisted the urge to wipe the tablet's screen clean again, brushing at his face instead, trying to clear the blurring from his eyes. Smoke was billowing from one of the ventilation ducts, and he was trying really hard not to calculate flow rate and volumes and just how much longer he had before passing out and inevitably succumbing to death by smoke inhalation, which was such a stupid way to go. Especially when you'd just blown something up.

_"Rodney?"_

The tablet slipped in Rodney's fingers, and he scrambled for it, reaching to his radio at the same time.

"Sheppard? Where the hell-" He began to choke before he could finish the sentence, falling to his knees and trying to breathe. Smoke rose, didn't it? Which meant that the air down here would be better, right? He just had to stay down and keep breathing.

His head had barely touched the floor when the radio crackled again.

_"McKay! You still there?"_

"Yeah. Lab. North Pier." Giving up hope of whole sentences, Rodney did the best he could between gasps. "Damn project- Tell Simpson-"

_"We know. Zelenka's having trouble convincing Atlantis to open the doors."_

"Good." Letting himself lie flat on the floor, Rodney pulled the tablet close to his face and tried to focus on it. "Get too many of them open and the whole place is going to go up."

_"We know that too. We're just trying to open the one where you are."_

"Yeah. Me too." He was nearly there, he was sure of it. If he could just… "Hang on."

Getting back to his hands and knees was tricky, especially when he felt like he was about to cough up a lung. But the terminal was only a few feet away, and its lights were still on, which meant it was still connected to the network, which meant he could plug his tablet into it.

_"Rodney? McKay!"_ Sheppard's voice was distorting, he was shouting so loudly, making Rodney wince.

"Busy here."

_"Doing what? Talk to me, buddy."_

Oh boy. Rodney's fingers were slippery with blood and sweat, and he kept losing his grip on the tablet's wires, and when Sheppard started calling him 'buddy', he knew he was really screwed. Which probably meant that Zelenka was nowhere near getting the door open and that Simpson (damn the woman – next time she could oversee her own damn project no matter how exciting it was looking because, oh yes, she'd failed to mention that it could explode at any minute) hadn't got the fire suppression system as fixed as she thought she had. Looked like it was up to him. Again.

"Tablet," he gasped, finally getting the plug into the slot. "On network. Doors." He let himself slide back down to the floor, clutching the now networked tablet to him like the lifeline it was.

_"Hang on."_ The line went quiet for a moment, then Sheppard said, _"Uh, Zelenka's on it. You want to talk me through what you were doing?"_

"No." Rodney tried breathing through his nose, only to give himself a sneezing fit, which rapidly turned into hacking coughs. The room was more than three-quarters full of smoke now, he guessed, and so much for all those years avoiding passive smoking. Looked like it had got him in the end.

_"Talk to me, Rodney."_

That was if Sheppard didn't annoy him to death first.

"No." Just pulling air in and out of his lungs hurt like hell, although the light-headedness at least meant he wasn't in too much pain elsewhere yet. The fact that blood was starting to run into his eyes suggested that the pain would come.

_"We just need a few minutes. Maybe less if you help us. You gonna help us out here?"_

"What am I? The Office Paperclip? Help yourselves." He got the words out at a cost, turning onto his side and trying desperately to catch his breath through the coughing.

_"I don't think the Atlantis software has a help menu."_ Damnit, Sheppard actually sounded amused. Rodney was lying here, suffocating and bleeding to death, and Sheppard was laughing at him. Wasn't that just perfect?

"If Zelenka can't figure it out for himself," was as far as he got, before the choking stopped him. There were black spots dancing in front of his eyes now, and the floor felt wonderfully cool against his forehead. And that couldn't be a good sign, because the labs on either side and beneath this one were on fire, weren't they? The floor should be hot so if it felt cool-

_"Rodney! The rescue teams will be with you in ten seconds after we get the doors open, so just hang on, alright?"_

Belatedly realising that the dismissive hand-waving didn't work so well on the radio, Rodney tried to summon up the energy for a decent comeback to the idiot who was spouting platitudes as though they were going to make a blind bit of difference to the dying man. He'd barely opened his mouth when his next breath choked him, and he lost track of everything for a moment.

When it all swam back into focus, Sheppard was yelling in his ear again.

_"Get yourself to the door. Rodney! The door. We're not going to be able to get it open very far and if they have to take too long to find you Atlantis is just going to start sealing more corridors. You need to be by the door, Rodney. Rodney, can you hear me?"_

"Unfortunately," Rodney mumbled, his voice not much more than a whisper. Every breath hurt now, and his head was starting to get in on the act too, but it seemed Sheppard was going to go on yelling at him until he did something, as usual. Pushing up onto his hands and knees, and pausing occasionally to cough, lie down and wish he was dead, Rodney began to drag himself towards the door.

He was almost there when the voice on the other end of the radio (and who knew Sheppard had been a drill sergeant in a previous life?) suddenly fell silent, then nearly burst his eardrum with a stupidly loud yell.

_"They got it! Rodney, get your sorry butt to the door right now, you hear me? The door's gonna open-"_

Rodney missed the rest of whatever abuse Sheppard was shouting in his general direction, because the doors had opened a scant half-inch before jolting to a stop, then sliding further apart. There was a rush of amazingly sweet air, then the distant sound of footsteps and finally, finally he could tell Sheppard to just go away. Pulling the earpiece out, Rodney forced himself to crawl the last foot towards the door, hearing running footsteps and more yelling, which didn't seem fair now that he'd got rid of Sheppard at last.

He would have loved to have said 'what took you so long' or 'about time' or something actually witty, biting and manly, but lying down and passing out was a much, much more inviting prospect at that point, because he was allowed to, now. The darkness was like a warm blanket around him, and as far as he was concerned, he didn't ever want to come out of it again.

* * *

 

Sheppard looked up as Lorne came into the room.

"Remind me what the point of having a second in command is," he said, leaning back in his chair, "if I have to do all the gate schedules, room allotments and team assignments myself?"

"I stop the men from mutinying when you forget to schedule them any down time. Sir." Not quite smiling, Lorne put the pile of folders he'd been carrying down on Sheppard's desk. "These are the files for the new science personnel coming on the Daedalus, or at least all the ones who are willing to be on gate teams."

"Good." Sheppard coughed a little, and Lorne frowned.

"Still a bit hoarse, sir?"

His throat had hurt for hours afterwards, but it had been worth every second. "Yelling at someone for ten minutes solid will do that."

"It worked, though."

"Yes, Major, it did." Tapping the files, Sheppard asked, "Has Rodney got copies?"

"Dropped them in myself. He's looking a bit better."

This time it was Sheppard who had to suppress the smile. "Carson kicked him out of the infirmary this morning. I think he bribed him with the promise that he could take an oxygen tank back to his quarters with him."

"He did breathe in a lot of smoke," Lorne said. "And his head looked pretty bad."

"Yeah." Blinking, Sheppard forced himself not to think about how damn bad it had been. If Rodney hadn't given them the headstart on the door override, or if Zelenka hadn't been able to interpret the program in time...

Distracting himself, he pulled his laptop over, turning it for Lorne to see. "I've put my team back on the gate rotations for two week's time. Rodney should be back to normal by then."

"Yes, sir." Lorne's tone carefully made no comment on what 'normal' might mean in Rodney's case. Then he frowned. "Sir, uh, I think there's something wrong with your computer." He pointed to a corner of the screen, and Sheppard swivelled the laptop back round to look.

In the corner of his screen, a small shape had suddenly popped up, not obviously doing anything, just sort of sitting there. Carefully, Sheppard moved his mouse pointer over it, reading the window that popped up as he did so. Then he grinned.

"It's fine, Major. I think McKay must be back online. Was there anything else?"

"No, sir."

Lorne left with his obvious curiosity unsatisfied, and Sheppard double clicked on the small icon, wondering how long it had taken Rodney to make it. The tiny Jumper swooped around his screen for a moment, getting bigger as it apparently flew towards him, before coming to a sudden stop. There was writing across its side, just big enough to read. It looked like Rodney had been busy.

Still grinning to himself, Sheppard double clicked the picture again, sending it back down to the corner of his screen, where it hovered as he checked the gate rotas. It sat there as he filled out the remaining requisitions forms, and didn't disappear when he opened a few of the more important emails. After an hour or so, he decided that if he was hungry, McKay had to be ravenous by now, and it seemed a shame to save the guy's life only to have him starve to death.

He couldn't resist double clicking the icon one last time as he got to his feet, leaving the Jumper sitting in the middle of the screen as he swiped his hand over the door control and headed out for some food.

 

  
**What would you like to do?**
* Go through the Stargate
  

* Explore the city
  

* Save teammates' lives
  

* Kill some Wraith
  

* Endure the ritual humiliation of running with Ronon
  

* Fly Jumper
  

* Endure the ritual humiliation of sparring with Teyla
  

* Comb hair
  



End file.
